


Family Don't End With Blood

by faeryn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant Temporary Character Death, M/M, Mostly narrative with minimal dialogue, Wildly OOC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 15:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7110883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faeryn/pseuds/faeryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: What if Linda Tran was Bobby?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family Don't End With Blood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pinkish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkish/gifts).



> I think this is the worst thing I've written in the last two years... Read it anyway ;P
> 
> I'm not sure what I was trying to achieve with this, but I think it's pretty rad regardless. 
> 
> Written for two lovely ladies who like to inspire me, both thank and fuck you for giving me ideas xD
> 
> Any mistakes are my own, forever unbeta'd <3

It had been a long time since Dean and Sam Winchester had rolled up through the gates of the scrapyard in the shiny black car that once belonged to their father. Still, nothing had changed since the last time they were there except that the childish paintings of monsters that went bump in the night adorning the porch with their garish pastel shades were now faded and peeling. A testament to how long they had been away. 

Nevertheless this was the closest thing to a static home they had ever had, and when the front door opened they both felt a rush of relief at the familiar face that greeted them as if they had never been away. The door was held open for them to enter and they gratefully took the invitation.

John was missing and they weren’t sure if he was dead or alive. They needed information and they needed it fast because something big was going on and it had something to do with their mom. There was never any shortage of help in this house, not for the Winchester boys. 

Linda Tran had been practically a mother to these two boys their whole lives even once her own son came along. She taught them all the important things in life; how to catch a baseball, the cornerstones of a nutritious meal on a budget, how to mend torn clothing (a skill that later came in handy for stitching wounds), all the basics. Grudgingly she also showed them how to fire a gun and gave lessons on the correct ways to despatch various monstrous creatures, but instilled in  _ her boys _ a strong sense of good and bad. She made sure to emphasise they were not to kill indiscriminately and that sometimes just because someone wasn’t  _ human _ that didn’t make them inherently  _ evil. _

The day John Winchester died she almost breathed a sigh of relief. And she would have if she hadn’t seen how it broke the hearts of the young men she had known most of their lives. They had lost both of their parents now and were feeling vulnerable and alone. 

“Family doesn’t end with blood, boys,” she told them gently as she gathered them in her arms, “ _ we _ will always be family.”

 

She saw them more often after that, they even dropped in when they were close by just to catch up or to get a decent meal after weeks of diner food and bad tacos. Sam devoured salads like there was a lettuce shortage but Dean - ever his father’s son - rolled his eyes and rejected anything green or, well, anything he considered ‘unmanly’. 

It was a surprise to her then when she found him outside alone one night, Sam snoring away on the couch, and he confessed in terrified whispers that he didn’t think he was normal. That he’d been having  _ thoughts _ that would make his father spin in his grave. He rolled a near empty beer bottle between his hands nervously as if he was afraid she would reject him and cried silent tears onto her shoulder when she held him tight and told him there was nothing wrong with him, that his thoughts, his  _ feelings _ , were okay. Not for the first time she silently cursed John Winchester for the damage he had done to his oldest son. She had begged him to let them stay with her, to let them be kids, but John had been a stubborn jackass and insisted his boys would grow up hunters. 

Sam was more well-rounded than Dean. He had rejected John’s teachings early on and after running away to Stanford had grown into a young man with a much healthier outlook on life. Losing Jessica had been the hardest thing he had had to deal with, really, since he had been far too young to remember losing Mary. The fact that he still butted heads with Dean just showed how different he was and in a way Linda was glad. Dean needed someone to keep him grounded, to stop him becoming the bitter old man John had become. She had taught them both to be themselves, but somewhere in the long years between the last time John had dropped them off without so much as a word and the time they rolled up looking for answers, Dean had been reconditioned to think like his father. 

It didn’t help that her own son, Kevin, had been around and had shared so many similar interests with Sam. It meant that Dean - being older, too - was often left out of their games. While she had been glad at the time that Kevin got along so well with Sam, she realised now that this friendship had driven a wedge between the brothers and driven Dean closer to his father. She hoped it wasn’t too late to repair the damage.

 

Dean came to rely on her more and more, even voluntarily taking part in big research jobs with little complaint. He seemed to need a parental figure to emulate in order to be… whole, in a way, and Linda was glad he finally had someone who loved him unconditionally and who had his best interests at heart to mirror. Her world shattered when the hellhounds came to take him after his single measly year following his deal with the crossroads demon. His subsequent resurrection and the appearance of the angel Castiel caused a tidal wave of new information and an upturning of everything they had ever learned but Dean took it in his stride. Despite his scepticism about the existence of God or Heaven when faced with unequivocal proof of the existence of angels he rolled with it and she was glad to see he soon developed a close friendship with Castiel. It wasn’t healthy to have such a small circle of friends to rely on and it warmed her heart to see that Castiel valued his friendship just as much. It made dealing with the fallout from the 40 years Dean had spent in Hell much easier. For the first time Linda could remember, Dean expressed his feelings of helplessness and remorse for the pain he had received and caused in Hell without embarrassment and asked for their help in processing the post traumatic stress he developed from that awful experience. 

She half expected him to take Castiel up on the offer to block his memories of that place and couldn’t help the feelings of pride that welled up when he declined, saying he needed to deal with them properly and not just push them away. He had come such a long way from the sullen young man who thought that being a ‘real man’ meant denying he had feelings at all. It hardly came as a surprise when she got up in the early hours of one morning to find Dean and Castiel sitting at the tiny kitchen table talking quietly about John. She stood just outside the room and eavesdropped for a while, wanting to know what her boy had to say about his father. 

“What he did… It wasn’t right. We were just  _ kids _ , Cas. I hated yellow-eyes just as much as he did for taking away my mom, but living my whole life lookin’ for revenge? That’s no way to grow up. An’ what did it get me? 40 years in Hell and no satisfaction. Oh and the fuckin’  _ apocalypse. _ Thanks  _ dad _ .”

He spoke haltingly at first, then bitterly, finally comfortable enough with someone who hadn’t spent 25 years hating John Winchester for the way he raised his kids to speak his mind. Castiel offered no judgement, no condemnation, only a willing ear and a shoulder to lean on. She knew he had never been able to talk to Sam about this stuff, he was just too resentful of John to let Dean express himself in a healthy way. And of course he would never talk to her about it. It would feel too much like a betrayal to him, he had spent so many years shielding Sam from the screaming arguments she and John had had about the way the Winchester boys were being raised. She creeped back to bed without getting the glass of water she had gotten up for and resolved to give Castiel the biggest hug in the world next time Dean wasn’t around. 

 

Linda Tran’s world shattered for a second time when Dean and Castiel vanished in the explosion of black goop that had been Dick Roman - or the leviathan posing as him, at least. She tried not to show it and supported Sam in his decision to pursue a normal life, the way Dean had always wanted. There was always the glimmer of hope that he would come back again. Sam and Dean never seemed to stay dead for long, something she was eternally grateful for, but she didn’t want to rely too much on this hope in case he never came back. The day he showed up on her doorstep with a cajun vampire in tow she swore she had never cried harder in her life, both because her eldest boy had been returned to her and because he had come back without Castiel. She loved that damn angel almost as much as the three boys she had raised, but she welcomed Benny into her home and her heart without hesitation. Anyone Dean trusted with his family - and make no mistake, she and Kevin  _ were _ family - she knew she would like. The affection they shared was evident from the first and she was glad Dean was continuing his journey of self-expression and not denying himself something he so evidently wanted. All she asked was that they kept the noise down. 

Castiel’s return had been a big surprise to them all, but both she and Dean hugged him so tight she was sure he would feel it for weeks. Benny greeted the other man with respectful warmth and between the three of them they finally explained to her everything that had happened in purgatory. It was gratifying to see that Benny wasn’t just a Castiel substitute, and that while Dean and Castiel still shared a deep bond of friendship he wasn’t going to discard the vampire simply because he’d known the angel first. It was clear that their relationships were very different. 

 

Sam’s return after the breakdown of his relationship with Amelia was unsurprising, but what  _ was _ unexpected was Dean insisting that Sam help her out instead of joining the three of them hunting in the field. They had spent so many years being completely codependent on each other that she could never have predicted this turn of events, though she would never turn down an offer of assistance with the never ending stream of phone calls and research that needed to be done. While Sam offered a weak protest she knew he was secretly happy that Dean didn’t seem to  _ need _ him anymore. Their relationship was finally evolving beyond the unhealthy mantra that had been Dean’s life since John had thrust baby Sammy into his arms at four years old and told him to take care of his brother. He had his best friend and a man he… loved? She thought so. He didn’t need to drag Sam around with him anymore. Linda knew that no matter what obstacles presented them now, they were stronger than they had ever been. 

 

After all, family doesn’t end with blood, and their little rag-tag family was the best she could have ever asked for. 

**Author's Note:**

> Weak ending is weak, but I couldn't think of anywhere more to go with this. If anyone feels like elaborating on this feel free and link me the result, I'd love to see this done with more thought instead of my sleep-deprived steam of consciousness :P


End file.
